Kenneth W. Thomas

Conflict styles of men and women at six organization levels

Purpose –This study used a relatively large, carefully designed sample to provide a more detailed examination of the way conflict styles vary by organization level and gender. Design/methodology/approach – We drew a stratified, random sample from a national data base on the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument, selecting 200 fully-employed men and 200 fully-employed women at each of 6 organizational levels—from entry-level positions to top executives. This design allowed us to test for linear and curvilinear relationships between style and organization level, as well as to compare gender differences in styles across organization levels. Findings – Results showed moderate effect sizes for both organization level and gender, with negligible interaction effects. Assertiveness (competing and collaborating) increases monotonically at progressively higher organization levels, while unassertive styles (avoiding and 1 Portions of this paper were presented at the 2006 Academy of Management meetings, Atlanta, GA. The authors are indebted to Jenny Merriam and David Donnay for their work on an earlier analysis of these data, and to Dennis Hocevar for his statistical expertise on the current paper.

Communication Apprehension, Interpretive Styles, Preparation and Performance in Oral Briefing

This paper introduces the constructs of interpretive styles from the empowerment literature. It proposes these styles as cognitive variables that shape communica tion apprehension (CA). We report an empirical study of oral briefings by naval officers. Results show that CA was linked to two interpretive styles: it was posi tively linked to deficiency focusing (the tendency to focus on what is wrong, can go wrong, and is wrong with oneself) and negatively linked to envisioning suc cess (the tendency to build mental images of succeeding). Results also show that CA diminished performance on the briefing, and that greater preparation was not an effective way of coping with apprehension.